


The Long Journey Home

by Scorpio71



Series: Journey-verse [1]
Category: The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Being Closeted, Character Study, DADT Repeal happened earlier than RL, F/M, Girls as beards, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pooch is a good bro, Self-Denial, Teen Angst, The Losers are a family, the magical healing of sex with Ian Edgerton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 16:40:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2659004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scorpio71/pseuds/Scorpio71
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at how a life-time loner finally found self-acceptance and ultimately a home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Long Journey Home

**Author's Note:**

> RATING: Teens+
> 
> DISCLAIMER:  
> Carlos ‘Cougar’ Alvarez is from The Losers by Diggle/Jock and DC/Vertigo.  
> Phil Coulson is from The Avengers which is owned by Marvel.  
> Ian Edgerton is from Numb3rs which is owned by Barry Schindel and Paramount.  
> Greg Sanders is from CSI Las Vegas which is owned by CBS Paramount.  
> Estrella Rodriguez and Maria Lopez are both mine.
> 
> WARNING: Homophobia, bad language

The Long Journey Home

****

**_The Shameful Secret…_ **

Carlos Alvarez first discovered his hormones sometime between his twelfth and thirteenth birthdays. He did this by getting an inappropriate boner while watching Arnold Schwarzenegger kick ass and take names while wearing a tiny little loincloth and swinging a big ass sword. He attempted to lie to himself and pretend it was the little blonde princess that was getting his motor running. Not truly believing his own deceptions, he ruthlessly ignored his throbbing penis and tried to put it all out of his mind.

That very night Conan the Barbarian ravaged him in his dreams…or at least he did what a not-quite thirteen year old would consider ravishing. Carlos found himself going from moaning in carnal delight while held in Conan’s muscle-bound arms while the man ran his big hand down Carlos’ chest before groping his straining erection; to waking up sweaty, panting, and soaked with his own jizz.

He instantly flew into near hysterics; panic, self-loathing, and pity seesawing back and forth with denial. At twelve and a half years old, Carlos had never heard the word ‘homosexual’. He had, however, heard the words: gay, fagot, fairy, queer, fruit, and cocksucker.

Gay people were to be scorned, mocked, pushed around, and if you could corner them somewhere out of sight, victims to be beaten into the hospital. He didn’t know why they were bad, just that they were. Everyone said so. It must be true.

Terrified that he might be beaten to death for being a queer fagot, Carlos swore that he would do anything to keep this shameful secret from everyone.

 

**_Denial and Deflection…_ **

The years turned slowly as Carlos tried to balance a growing social circle with increasing responsibilities. He had obligations to the Church, to his teachers, to his friends, and to his family. Entering into Junior High School made things a little difficult and tense for him. Most of his friends were discovering girls and began to talk about dating. He soon learned to follow his friend’s lead on all things girly. He simply nodded agreement when they declared a girl to be a ‘hot babe’ or labeled her ‘oh hell no’. To throw his family off the scent of possible fag-dom, he made sure his friends rated girls in his father’s hearing and then was careful to promise his mother that he ‘wasn’t ready to date yet’.

He nearly panicked after overhearing his grandmother inform his mother in a smug tone of voice that he was growing into quite the lady’s man just like his father. He had no interest in girls and he was certain that if he was forced to date one that it would show. If his older sisters were anything to go by, girls gossiped. A lot. He could forgive his sisters their gossipiness, however, since they gave him a great way to avoid getting paired up with some random girl by his friends or family. They were bitching about this totally hot football player who was almost never around enough to date; he was always off training or at games or something like that.

Deciding to adopt that same strategy, Carlos managed to ignore the whole Junior High dating scene by focusing on sports and activities that were as manly and un-sissy boy as he could find. He learned to hunt and fish, to ride a motocross bike, to hike, and to rock climb. He joined the football team, the track team, and even a bowling league.

In a weird way, this technique backfired. Yeah, he was far too busy to date, but joining all those clubs and teams and groups made his popularity skyrocket. And the more his social circle grew, the more alone he felt. His friends were starting to date and they bragged about the girls they escorted around. What’s more, the girls around him were definitely noticing him and they spent an inordinate amount of time stalking him about. Carlos just grinned and played shy while desperately trying to hide the fact that his own crushes tended to revolve around his teammates and guy friends.

 

**_The Crush…_ **

When Carlos transitioned from Junior High School to Senior High School, he also made it a point to learn how to fight. That was a priority for him…just in case his secret was found out. He didn’t want to get beaten into a hospital ER. To that end, he joined the local gym and took up boxing as a featherweight and joined the school’s wrestling team.

When he was about fifteen and a half, Carlos began to get really worried that something was gonna give and his secret would be revealed. He suffered nightmares about being thrown out of his family for being queer only to have his teammates and friends stone him in the streets. His parents had finally realized that all of his friends were dating girls and he wasn’t. His mother began to fuss that he worked too hard and hinted that maybe he shouldn’t be on so many teams or belong to so many clubs. His father made it a point to introduce him to girls that he had known all his life. Even his older sisters got in on the act and lectured him on how shyness and playing hard to get was exciting at first, but after a while girls would begin to give up on him so he needed to make a move.

The only move Carlos wanted to make was on the star of the track team, Phil Coulson; but he couldn’t say _that_. So his nightmares got worse and he got even more tense and reticent.

 

**_The Stars at Night…_ **

When Carlos turned sixteen a miracle happened; he realized that his sexuality wasn’t a matter of black and white. The girls around him were sprouting boobs like crazy and he kinda liked it. He latched onto that fact like a drowning man thrown a life preserver and attempted to ignore that his tastes ran 85% towards men and only 15% towards women. And that was being a bit overly generous to the women.

He haltingly and shyly asked Estrella Rodriguez to the movies and was treated with a small kiss goodnight. The kiss itself did nothing for him physically, but it earned him elbow nudges and sly winks from his papa and had his mother reassuring his aunts that he was just a late bloomer.

A few more dates with Estrella got him the opportunity to grope her breasts, but in all honesty, Carlos would have rather groped Phil.

Eventually Carlos realized that Estrella was beginning to put too much stock in their relationship. He didn’t want to break her heart, but he couldn’t keep on lying to her. He didn’t love her even if he liked her as a friend and he certainly couldn’t see them getting engaged and eventually being married. He owed it to Estrella and himself to break up with her.

 

**_Maria, Maria…_ **

Several months later, Carlos was asked out to the Sadie Hawkins dance by Maria Lopez. Maria was an athletic girl who competed on the girls’ volleyball team, soccer team, and gymnastic team. She was short and very muscular for a girl…as such, she was popular to be friends with but wasn’t a highly sought after girlfriend. Maria explained it in terms that neither of them was seeing anyone and she wanted to go to the dance, so they could go as friends. She was under no delusion that she was desirable as a girlfriend.

Carlos said yes. And then asked her to come watch his wrestling match the next week to her surprise.

Maria actually made a great girlfriend. She was a dedicated sports enthusiast, so they had a lot in common. She didn’t mind getting dirty, so he could take her fishing. She liked to bowl.

As a bonus, her compact and muscular form gave her a distinctly boyish figure that Carlos found more attractive than the lush curves many of his friends preferred. Unlike with Estrella, Carlos could actually get hard making out with Maria and they eventually lost their virginities together. It had been quite pleasurable, but Carlos couldn’t help but wish she’d had a penis. If she’d had one of those, she’d have been the perfect girlfriend.

Mostly because she would have been a boy.

 

**_Escape and Evasion…_ **

Around high school graduation, his mom started dropping hints about him getting a job and settling down into marriage with Maria and Carlos got twitchy. It was one thing to date a girl from school when he knew it was just a face saving temporary thing, and quite another to consider marrying her.

Carlos didn’t want a wife…even if it was Maria. He wanted a husband. But he couldn’t tell anyone _that_.

So, with much thought and consideration, after graduating from high school he joined the Army. His mom and Maria cried, his papa said he was proud, and his sisters all made him promise to be safe and write them often. To Carlos, it was an escape from a fate worse than death. His mother couldn’t marry him off to Maria from half a world away and hopefully by the time he got out of the Army people would have come to think of him as a die-hard lifetime bachelor who would have no clue what to do with a wife.

And honestly, he really wouldn’t know what to do with one. 

 

**_In the Army Now…_ **

To his surprise, he actually loved being in the Army. He had always been athletic and the physical aspects of it all really spoke to him. He made lots of friends. And thanks to his experience with Maria, he developed a way to keep up a ‘straight’ reputation without having to have a steady girlfriend. He would just go out to the bar with the guys and let some girl pick him up for the night.

No one had to know that he often pretended to be too drunk to do anything with the girl once they left the bar together. Nor did they have to know that of the times that he actually did do anything sexual with his one night stands; it was usually just him getting a quick blow. The guys didn’t see that end of it; they just saw him leaving a string of bars with a string of ladies.

Instant rep.

That worked well for him for a long while and he was happy…or at least, as happy as he’d ever been.

 

**_Special Training with Ian…_ **

Then came the day he was sent off to sniper training. That training course changed his life in more ways than one. The publicly known change was that his huge success rate and talent for making incredibly difficult shots guaranteed he’d end up seeing front line combat with some of the roughest teams. The secret change came about from meeting one of the other soldiers there for training; one fucking hot and sexy Native American named Ian Edgerton.

For the first time in his life Carlos had a crush on a man that ended up crushing on him right back. They quickly became friends. And then shortly after that they discreetly became friends with benefits.

Carlos had been fantasizing about sex with men since he was twelve and a half years old and he’d never once worked up the courage to go through with it…until Ian. His world was instantly rocked and he decided that gay sex was AMAZING! He soon discovered that he loved to suck cock and that he was a pushy bottom.

He could have happily spent the rest of his life following Ian back and forth from the shooting range to the bedroom and back again.

Sadly, training doesn’t last forever, and soon enough he and Ian were shipped off in different directions. They tried to keep in touch, but that wasn’t always as easy as it sounded and they soon drifted apart as a couple. Carlos made a promise to himself, however, that he wasn’t going to forget what he had learned from Ian; hiding your sexual preference from DADT didn’t mean being ashamed.

 

**_Greg…_ **

After that, occasionally when Carlos had leave, instead of going out to the local bar with the guys to let a woman pick him up…he would instead head out alone to a gay club and pick up a man for the night.

Eventually he met a man named Greg Sanders that was studying to be a forensic scientist and who liked to dance in the clubs. He was intelligent, funny, and was very hot. He had been a bit wary of Carlos being in the Army, but he’d liked Carlos enough to put his distaste for the military aside and form a relationship.

Things were going great until that damn clusterfuck in Afghanistan that Carlos tried desperately not to think about outside of his nightmares. The headshrinkers worked hard for him, but he expected to be bounced out of the Army and right into the Bughouse. On top of all that, Greg – who had always been better with science than with people, couldn’t deal with the soul-deep changes in Carlos and the fact that he had basically shut down emotionally.

Inevitably, their relationship fell apart.

Somehow, despite the recurring nightmares, the grief and guilt plaguing him, and the loss of his boyfriend, Carlos managed to pull it together enough to be somewhat functioning and was reluctantly cleared for duty.

Snipers tend to be floaters, going from team to team as the various missions dictate. Suddenly, however, Carlos found his assignments had all dried up. At first he didn’t really notice, but when he did clue in he was simply confused. After a while, the truth sank in. No CO wants to trust his team’s back to a sniper with serious PTSD issues.

Well, no CO but one.

 

**_Cougar is a Loser…_ **

Then he joined The Losers as a permanent team member and earned the nickname Cougar.

He was with them for a year when DADT got repealed. He was seriously tempted to finally share his secret with the team, but in the end he decided to keep it quiet. So he was completely shocked when Pooch slapped him on the back and said, “Bet you’re glad you don’t have to sneak around to get some guy on guy action anymore, huh?”

His heart rate skyrocketed even as the blood drained out of his face. Panic made his brain seize up and he’d swayed on his feet in an attempt to keep from passing out. Pooch steadied him with concern and asked, “What? You didn’t know we all knew?”

As it turns out, his bisexuality was an open secret among The Losers and they had all kept it on the downlow due to DADT. It was honestly no big deal to them that he didn’t just like dick, but actually preferred it to women. They were all straight, knew he wasn’t, and liked him anyway. In his mind, they went from teammates to family right then and there. He knew he’d willingly die for these guys.

Several months later, the team got a new tech and comms guy. Jake Jensen walked in and Cougar took one look at his bright smile, wide shoulders, and rippling muscles and felt his world turn on its head. Cougar had never believed in love at first sight…until then.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t actually love at first sight. What it was, was a serious hardcore case of instant raging lust.


End file.
